I was chatting with a number of teachers recently. Wow. Talk about uncertainty and confusion. When talking to one, a science teacher, I said something about not doing labs.
“Really?! We’re not having labs? That’s the cornerstone of my class,” was their slightly panicked reply.
And this is, what, seven days before kids are back in class? I only knew because our reporter spent hours combing through the Richmond School District’s 20-page health and safety plan released last week.
Another teacher I spoke to on the weekend said she hasn’t a clue what’s going to happen Sept. 10 — and isn’t particularly interested in finding out.
“I just delete all those emails, because it’s all going to change anyway.”
The whole thing is evolving so fast, there’s no point trying to figure it out until they make a final decision, she said.
She also had a theory that Richmond School District waits until it sees what other districts do before making a move.
“It’s actually smart,” she added. Why not hang back and see what works? Nothing like having a bit of evidence to inform a decision.
Yet another teacher said, it’s not really about particular school district plans, anyway. Districts are tweaking things as best they can, but it really comes down to what the provincial government mandates.
And, at this point, it’s mandating things like Grade 8 and 9 classes of up to 30 students not wearing masks in 75-square-metre classrooms.
They’re not even expected to social distance, which of course would be impossible anyway.
So why not spread the kids out? as a number of parents have suggested. Put kids in other facilities — community centres, churches, what have you.
A group of Burkville parents whose kids attend Brighouse elementary wrote the Richmond School District suggesting it use the recently closed Sea Island School, which is now housing two child care centres and continuing education.
It seemed like a smart solution, but the district said no because there aren’t enough teachers to go around. If they put staff in Sea Island, Brighouse classes will be over crowded. The no-brainer answer to that is hire more teachers, but that’s costly.
I’ve also heard plenty of parents talk about online learning. One parent seemed beside herself with frustration that teachers don’t simply live stream their classes.
“It’s as easy as pushing a button,” she said in an email to the News.
Good point. We’re certainly doing lots of button pushing at our workplaces.
But here’s the thing, the days of teachers standing at the front of a class lecturing are long gone. Most of today’s classrooms are busy places full of hands-on participation. This means not only will the kids at home not be participating, but any live stream won’t just be filming the teacher but everyone else in the class as well. This is fine for a bunch of consenting adults, but what about when someone’s bullied about something personal. It can be recorded and sent anywhere. Our kids have a right to privacy.
This isn’t to say we shouldn’t develop online learning. Of course we should, but with the understanding it requires more than pushing a button.
The no-brainer answer to that is, use some of our tech-savvy teaching professionals to develop online teaching modules, but...wait for it...that’s costly.
Granted, we can’t simply throw money at these challenges. For this school year to go well, we’ll need innovation, determination, and a lot of flexibility. But we’ll also need resources. I get that we’re already looking at a ballooning deficit, but I fear it’s a case of pay me now or pay me later.
Smaller class sizes and online course development are essential if we don’t want to see what havoc a second shut down could wreak on our economy — not to mention our kids.
